


Unreachable Dreams

by Princex_N



Category: Free!
Genre: Anxiety, Autism, Autistic!Haru, Gen, POV Third Person, Plans For The Future, Profanity, Sensory Overload, meltdowns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 05:09:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2336435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You didn't think it was that important, it was something that was going to happen, but it wasn't going to happen any time soon, but now it is. It's all in your face and it's all too much and there are people in your space and they're loud and yelling and they all want to know and you. don't. know. </p><p>What school, what career, what dream, none of that mattered to you. All you wanted to do was swim. Now it feels like you can't even do that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Open Turn of Destiny

**Author's Note:**

> Autistic!Haru is rad. It is official.

Everyone is bothering you and you don't know what to do about it. They are all so interested in your future plans but you have no idea what to tell them. You don't know, you have no clue at all. You don't know what to tell them. 

You don't know what to tell yourself. 

You didn't think it was that important, it was something that was going to happen, but it wasn't going to happen any time soon, but now it is. It's all in your face and it's all too much and there are people in your space and they're loud and yelling and they all want to know and you. don't. know. 

What school, what career, what dream, none of that mattered to you. All you wanted to do was swim. Now it feels like you can't even do that. 

You have always felt comfortable in water, you have never had a problem with that sensation on your skin. Sand, the wind, fabric, those things have all felt wrong at some point, at most points. But water? It has always felt amazing. 

Except for now. The feeling of it on your skin makes you want to claw it off, you don't know how to handle that. You don't know what to do about it, you got into the bathtub one night and it almost hurt you. That time you couldn't stop yourself, your hands flailed at your chest as you scrabbled out of the tub and onto the floor. 

The tile is too cold against your skin, your swimsuit is too tight, the space heater is too loud, the sensation of damp skin made a chill creep up and down your spine but the towel is too rough  _and you can't handle this what the hell are you supposed to do about all of this_. 

You press your hands over your ears and you curl up in the corner of the bathroom because you don't even know what else you can do at this point. You can't move forward even a little bit, you curl into a ball and you rock back and forth and you can feel your vocal chords vibrating even though you don't know what sound you're making. 

You don't know how long you stay like that, but eventually your skin dries off and everything stops feeling so small and tight and wrong and you manage to uncurl yourself bit by bit and you let your hands drop from where they've been digging into the skin behind your ears. 

You're exhausted, slumped against the wallpaper in your bathroom, you just want to sleep. But you don't let yourself do that. You get up and put clothes on, digging out a pair of actual underwear because the slick fabric of your swimsuit is almost torturous. You take out a heavy sweater and pull it on, then you curl under your table and just try to get away from yourself. 

You're on the verge of sleep when Makoto comes to get you. The very last thing you want right now is to go see fireworks, but you're tired of people bothering you, you hope that maybe if you try and make them happy then they'll stop asking you things you don't know how to answer. 

But that isn't what happens, that would be too convenient for you. When Rei starts to talk, something nasty coils in your stomach and you just want it to stop. Your hands stay curled into fists at your side and you do not let them flap. He talks like he has such big hopes for you, like everyone has such big hopes for you and you wonder if that makes you odd because you don't understand why everything has to be made into a big deal. You just want to swim. 

Makoto talks big for you too. He follows you when you try and get away from all the noise and as much as you don't really want to be alone, you want him to leave. He talks like he understands, and Makoto has always been so good to you, so good for you, but all of a sudden he's just like everyone else and it's so different that you don't know how to handle it. 

The nasty feeling in your stomach twists into something like anger, and the words you want to say won't come out right. You try to get away from him, you can tell that everything is too in your face all at once and you need to get away, you can feel a knot tightening in your throat and when you turn to leave you  _need_  him to let you go. 

But he doesn't. He grabs you, you can feel every millimeter of his hand pressed into your arm and it  _hurts_. You try to pull away but he won't let you and Makoto has  _never_ touched you when you don't want to be touched and it's hurting. When he starts to yell at you it's like a whine in your ears and it makes your head hurt and you need to go. 

You start to yell, you don't know really what you're saying. You just need to say all of these things and you don't have the right words for them. You're trying. Makoto bats all of your arguments to the side like they mean nothing and when you try to pull your arm out of his grip it only tightens. 

You want to tell him how much this is stressing you out, how you don't know what half of the emotions you're fighting off are, but you can't bring yourself to do it. You just want it all to stop, you want them all to leave you alone because you're  _scared_ and you don't  _know_ what to do about it. 

He shakes you and he's yelling and talking like you're hurting them and you don't know what you're doing that could make them all so upset. When he asks why you don't understand, why you  _can't_ understand their emotions, it feels like you just dove into icy water, your lungs tighten and your eyes water a little because Makoto has  _never ever_ said anything like that to you. He's always understood and he never asked the questions that everyone else around you did. You don't know how to respond to him, you don't have an answer. 

You're angry at everything. You're upset and you're angry and it's all too damn much, you're yelling things before you can stop yourself, and you want to stop yourself because your voice is too loud and you're being so fucking hateful. But you're just upset, you want him, the noise, the everything to back off, so you yell. 

Your hand is trembling where it's knotted in his shirt and your other hand is shaking in a parody of a stim because you're so overwhelmed not even that seems like enough to calm you down. He hasn't said a word about his own future because he's so wrapped up in yours and you just want him to step. off. 

When he lets go of your arm, it doesn't feel as good as you thought it would. The humid air brushes over the sudden lack of pressure and you almost want it back. His quiet voice feels louder than his shouting and when you look at his face, you can't read the emotion there. That scares you too, Makoto has always been so dramatically expressive for your sake. 

"I'm going to a university in Tokyo." he says, and your lungs freeze in your chest. You finally understand why people say that the floor has dropped out from underneath them, it actually clicks for you because you can feel it. Everything is changing, and you're the only thing staying the same and you don't know how to handle this. Not event the boom of the fireworks so close to where you are is enough to snap you out of the pure and unadulterated shock you've fallen into. 

He's still talking, but you can't really hear what he's saying. When he looks you in the eyes, it's the last straw. You feel tears flood your own eyes and you see the surprise on his face before you snap them shut. Your hands fly up next to your head and they move frantically of their own accord, ruffling your hair with the motions. You hear him say your name and you shout at him, a drawn out note of raw emotion and you turn and run before he can grab you again. 

You sprint all the way home and by the time you get inside your house you can barely breathe anymore. You throw off your clothes and you curl under your heavy blanket and you hope that maybe that will be enough to get you away from everything forever. 


	2. A Swim Off in a Foreign Land

When Rin shows up at your door, you're too exhausted to really protest. You mostly just stood there while he bustled around your room to get your things together. When he told you to get dressed, you went ahead and did so, because you're just so tired of fighting them all. It isn't worth it anymore. 

You shrug on your hoodie even though it's not cold enough outside to actually need it, the weight of it is comfortable against your shoulders and that's more than you can say for most of your clothes at that point. You take the bag that he shoves at you and you follow him out of the house. 

When it finally clicks for you what's going on, you wish that you had protested. You didn't really have a plan for today, but flying to Australia definitely wasn't something you were going to do and the distress that rises up in your chest in response to the realization makes you rock back on your feet while your fingers flutter by your sides. You want to tell him to stop but your voice chooses now of all times to fall silent. 

You keep following him. All the way to the airport because you know that if you stop moving, he's going to grab you, and after what happened last night, that's the last thing you want. 

The guy that has your passport asks you something and you have no idea what he's saying. Maybe Makoto was right when he said that you should study English, Makoto is usually right about things, which is why the fact that everything that he's saying is feeling wrong is so upsetting. You don't particularly care what the man is saying, but when his eyebrows drop low on his face you struggle to find your voice because low eyebrows never mean anything good. 

"What is he saying?" you manage to choke out, your voice is so quiet that you're surprised that Rin can even hear it, but he does. He leans in front of you and says something in english which is so unusual, but the guy's face lifts slightly and you move on. 

Being at the airport makes you nervous, the voice on the speakers is loud and grating on you, and that's only made worse by the noise and feeling of the sheer amount of people stuffed into this one building. You don't want to think about what would happen to you if you got lost in a place like this, but Rin refuses to slow down, he won't even look at you. 

He's infuriatingly vague about where he wants to take you. You know that the stamp on your passport has the name of where you're going, but you can't read it, and even if you could, that still wouldn't answer why he's taking you there. Before you can try to ask again, he takes off and you have to run after him or you run the risk of being left behind. 

The bus is loud and crowded and the plane is loud and crowded and people keep brushing up against you and now you're especially grateful that you decided to wear this sweatshirt because it's keeping their touches to a minimum. You sway a little in your seat, but you don't start to meltdown. That doesn't make being off the plane any less of a relief. 

You need to know what you're doing here, in Australia of all places, but when you turn to Rin you find him stunningly absent and that is very not good or okay. 

Panic flares in your chest and you lurch unsteadily to your feet, your hands flap level with your chest and a man walking by gives you an odd look. If you weren't so nervous, you would maybe want to read into that, but you're more concerned with the fact that Rin just left you alone in a new country and you have no idea where you are or how to speak English. 

When he comes back his face falls when you tell him not to leave you alone like that, and you wonder what you did to make him feel bad. Apparently that's something you do more often than you thought, maybe you're supposed to try and work extra hard to keep that from happening, but you don't even know what it is you're doing wrong. 

You don't know what to say when he apologizes and you don't know what to say when he tells you that he admires you. You don't know how you got into a position where your swimming seems to affect everyone so deeply. You don't really want to be admired, you just want to swim. You want to tell him that, but when you think back to Makoto, you decide to keep it to yourself. 

He takes you to the beach then, and that's the last place you want to be. You keep as much skin as you can completely covered because the sand and the salt gets on it and it doesn't leave and it makes you feel awful and one step away from falling apart. You know that usually, you'd be able to overlook all of that just because you could get into the water. But you're afraid to. 

You're afraid that it's going to feel the same way it did the other night, so you stay sitting on the beach with your knees drawn up to your chest. 

You try to keep everything to yourself because you don't want to talk about it, but Rin has always been as good as Makoto at reading you, so it's really no surprise that he guesses so quickly. 

"Sousuke and I fight all the time." he tells you, and you know that it's supposed to be encouraging, that it's him reassuring you that it's not as big of a deal that you feel it is. 

"It was my first fight." you say before you can stop yourself, and he goes quiet. It is a big deal, and you know it is, because you usually don't care enough to get angry at people, and you and Makoto have never had a reason to fight at all before. You haven't always seen eye to eye, but he's never tried to push you farther than you want to go, and you usually trust him to help you out. 

But for some reason, this one simple thing is tearing everything you love to pieces and you can't do anything to stop it. 

Rin talks so clearly about his emotions and you wish that you could do the same. You've never really cared too much about your autism, it's never felt like a big deal, but all of a sudden it feels like all it's doing is getting in your way. Like it's the reason you can't find it in yourself to have the big dream that everyone else wants for you, like it's the reason you just seem to be hurting everyone that's coming into contact with you. 

You hate feeling this way. 

You have absolutely no idea what the heck is going on at the house. Most of the conversation goes completely over your head, mostly because Rin will only translate a quarter of what's being said. Of course, even if you could understand what's going on, you don't think you'd be an active participant of any conversation. You just don't want to talk, and even though it's weird, not being able to understand what's going on is a convenient excuse to not speak at all. 

Maybe that's why Rin isn't saying anything. 

The hotel smells like cleaning products that hurt your nose, and when Rin goes into the room to only find one bed, you feel him get tense next to you. You don't really get why it's that big of a deal, so you don't understand why he's so upset. 

"This must be your fault. You and your girly name!" he exclaims, and that makes even less sense because his name is just as girly as yours is. 

"It's probably your fault, then." you protest, because you weren't even the one who booked the room, how could it possibly be your fault?

"It's your fault!" Rin retorts, twisting around to look at you. 

"Your fault." you echo, which wasn't entirely intentional. Rin doesn't seem to pick up on the echolalia, he just argues back. After it happens again, he storms out to go back to the lobby of the hotel to try and get a new room. 

After he leaves, you narrow your eyes at the bed and try to figure out what it is that upset him so much about having to share it. It's not like this is the first time either of you have slept so close to someone else, and it's not like you kick in your sleep or anything. The bed looks big enough to accommodate the two of you, you can't see the problem. You stop trying. 

You sit on your bag, bury your face in your arms and sigh. You're exhausted. You wish that Makoto was here to help explain what the hell is going on, but then you remember that he's angry at you and you just feel sad. 

He comes back still tense and angry and you mostly try to just stay out of his way. When it's your turn to take a shower, it takes a while for you to convince yourself to even turn the water on. You have no interest in taking a bath right now, and even if you did, there isn't a bathtub in this hotel, so you take a shower. The water doesn't feel nice on your skin, but not being completely submerged is helping a bit. You distance yourself from the feeling of the wetness and choose to focus instead on the feeling of the droplets hitting your back. You end up sitting on the floor and shutting your eyes and just rocking, largely, openly, until Rin bangs on the door and demands to know what's taking so long and your eyes fly open so fast that you're blinded for a bit. 

You get out and it's nice to know that you're not always going to be so affected by the feeling of water. Maybe it really was just a one time thing. 

Later that night, Rin talks about how he admires and looks up to you again and you don't even have the energy to be angry. Nothing changes, you don't really feel anything at his words, not happy or sad or angry or anything. You don't even think he knows that you're awake, but he doesn't react like he thought you were when you finally admit that you remember the event. You remember everything like that, why would you want to forget it. 

When he asks if you felt something at the last race, you don't say anything because you aren't sure what to say. That doesn't make you any less happier to know that you weren't the only one who thought that race was special. 

-

The pool he takes you to is amazing. It's so big and the water is so beautiful that you're willing to overlook the way that the lighting inside hurts your eyes and how the sound of the light bulbs hurt your head. It's so beautiful that you were sure that you weren't going to be allowed anywhere near it, and it's such an odd feeling, to not jump into the pool the moment you see it. You've never hesitated like this before and it gives you an unsettled feeling. 

Rin doesn't seem surprised at all to discover that you didn't bring a swimsuit even though this is the first time you've been without one in literal years. He has a swimsuit that's only barely different from your usual one, and you wonder if he brought it for you specifically for this, because you know he doesn't ever wear a swimsuit that goes above his knees. 

You're starting to get actually excited to get into a pool for the first time in a while now. Every time before this has felt almost forced, not as good as it did before. It feels like that again, and you realize how much you missed the feeling. 

It fades a little when Rin tells you that the national team practices here. You don't particularly care for their presence, but now you're worried that this is just going to end up another way to push a dream that you aren't sure you want into your arms again. Rin hasn't done that once this trip, but that doesn't mean that it isn't going to happen. 

When he lets you make the decision, though, you know that he isn't going to say anything. This isn't about a race or a dream, he just wants to swim, with you, and that's when you realize that you do too. 

So you walk past all of the people who are stretching, and for the first time in a while, you aren't acutely aware of what they're saying. For the first time in a while, you can hear the water over the sounds of the people and it's such a comforting noise. 

You get up on the staring block and you're not feeling any sort of pressure and damn if that isn't a good feeling. You hesitate, a little, before you jump in because you worry just for a second that the water is going to hurt you like it did the other night. 

Rin's voice snaps you out of it, and you feel a smile on your face for the first time in ages. The two of you dive in together and the feeling of gliding in the water makes your skin  _sing_. Your body doesn't feel heavy and awkward when you move, the water doesn't hurt, and the overwhelming anxiety that has been trailing after you leaves. When you get back to the starting block, you just stand there and flap your hands so enthusiastically that you splash yourself in the face.  _  
_

When Rin notices, he laughs, but you know that he isn't really laughing at you. You smile a little too and just let your hands go because you're really not sure if you can stop them and you don't particularly care to. Your swimsuit feels natural again, and the water feels good again, and you think that maybe if you could feel like this forever then it really wouldn't be a bad thing at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what decision Haru made because I don't know what decision Haru made and so it's just an open ending. IDK.   
> [My Tumblr](http://www.striders-g0nna-stride.tumblr.com) again.

**Author's Note:**

> IDK those new episodes are giving me emotions. Haru's current struggle is really striking a chord with me because I'm having the same problem, so I wrote this.  
> I actually think I'm going to write another chapter for this, it was fun writing Haru. So I think i'm going to tack on episode12 too. But later. SO. tada.  
> [My Tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com) if you want it. ~


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